Ben & Franci and co (sort of) in New York City

Why and wherefore

Several people have asked us why we’re heading away, so here’s a brief run-down. We’ve been thinking about a U.S. holiday for a few years now, but then we thought it might make more sense to save up for a U.S. holiday in the U.S.

I (Ben) am a U.S. citizen, so it’s fairly straightforward for me to work over here. But the first step was me finding work. It turns out that Oyster Hotel Reviews saw my CV online shortly after I put it up early this year. Coincidence? Methinks not.

We weren’t looking in New York City by any means, but that’s where Oyster’s based. And Oyster wasn’t necessarily looking for programmers from New Zealand. So we both thought we’d give it a try, and I went over there to work for them for three weeks in March. That went really well, and they somehow convinced us that the Big Apple wasn’t half bad. :-)

The next step was Franci and the kids applying for visas. It turns out that because we were planning to stay two years, and because I’m a citizen, “they” didn’t trust us not to stay, and that would have made Franci and the kids overstayers. Kinda weird logic. So we had to apply for immigration visas — quite a drama, reams of paperwork, and no small cost. But now we’re all in!

So there we are: trying to finish up and pack up here, and flying to NYC in about four weeks. Oyster’s offices are in Manhattan (NY city centre), but it’s likely we’ll live in Brooklyn. It looks like we’ll be in a temporary, furnished apartment for the first month, and we’ll look for a longer-term rental after that. We’ll post photos when we can!